QNAP TS-473A-8G 4-Bay NAS AMD V1500B

Bought this in early 2023 under the Christmas deal, after spending weeks comparing all NAS available in the market. I chose this because the memory upgradable is up to 64GB and it still have enough bays to support my work. Being my first NAS set-up, it was frustrating to set it up, as there was no clear manual in the box where it only points to go to download links and even the links don't really help much in terms of which we need to download. The problem was solved by watching around 2 hours of Youtube videos.

Asrar's review of QNAP TS-473A 4-Bay Desktop NAS (Network-Attached Storage) Enclosure

Pros: A powerful NAS with ability to expand and scale.Upgradable RAM is very useful.Containerisation capability makes it run a multi-deployment model app server.Secure access to NAS admin interface using MFA.Easy and useful admin user interface to do regular technical house-keepings.Cons: CPU can be upgraded to 6 or 8 cores for container apps requiring high CPU usage.

Excellent performance and flexible expansion options

Excellent device, the plastic drive caddies seem noisier than aluminium ones on older devices but the screwless design of them is helpful. Overall performance is excellent out the box, adding RAM and M.2 cache SSD's seems almost greedy but provides flexibility for future needs like few other devices for this price level,.

Fantastic unit

Hello all,I have had this for about 2.5-3 weeks now and so far I love it. Running a dedicated Asus XG-C100C 10gb nic with a direct CAT7 cable to the unit. I grabbed two Crucial 16GB (Single DDR4 2400 MT/s) to give 32gb ram and am running 4 Samsung 1tb 860 drives in the SSD slots and 5 2tb 7200rpm 256mb cache drives in the main bays using QTiering and have been getting pretty consistent transfer speeds. In the attached image I took a 40gb rar file and transfered from the Unit to my PC (transferred to a Saberent Rocket 4.0 NVMe drive). The 40GB transfer stayed perfectly consistent for the duration which took about 1 minute total.I am running a Ubuntu LXC image on the unit for some light duty tasks and I do wish I was able to have gotten the quad-core AMD, but the ... MoreHello all,I have had this for about 2.5-3 weeks now and so far I love it. Running a dedicated Asus XG-C100C 10gb nic with a direct CAT7 cable to the unit. I grabbed two Crucial 16GB (Single DDR4 2400 MT/s) to give 32gb ram and am running 4 Samsung 1tb 860 drives in the SSD slots and 5 2tb 7200rpm 256mb cache drives in the main bays using QTiering and have been getting pretty consistent transfer speeds. In the attached image I took a 40gb rar file and transfered from the Unit to my PC (transferred to a Saberent Rocket 4.0 NVMe drive). The 40GB transfer stayed perfectly consistent for the duration which took about 1 minute total.I am running a Ubuntu LXC image on the unit for some light duty tasks and I do wish I was able to have gotten the quad-core AMD, but the sale price was too good to pass up over the holiday. All said and done, so far I am quite pleased with this unit.Thanks,Dan

Fast to set up and excellent software

I have had NAS enclosures from Buffalo, Synology, Netgear, and QNAP, and of these the QNAP have had the best user interface combined with excellent performance and longevity of the enclosure as well as the drives inside.I bought this particular enclosure as it provided the benefits of the Intel processor, ability to load up to 32GB of RAM, and I could later add SSD drives if desired in the future.I could not give it 5 stars as their is no display as I have with my QNAP TS-453 and need to rely 100% on logging in with a browser, and unlike the TS-453, the TVS-951X does not have an internal power supply but instead comes with a very large external brick transformer.The 9-bay description is highly misleading as it is really a 5-drive enclosure with 4 bays for SSD ... MoreI have had NAS enclosures from Buffalo, Synology, Netgear, and QNAP, and of these the QNAP have had the best user interface combined with excellent performance and longevity of the enclosure as well as the drives inside.I bought this particular enclosure as it provided the benefits of the Intel processor, ability to load up to 32GB of RAM, and I could later add SSD drives if desired in the future.I could not give it 5 stars as their is no display as I have with my QNAP TS-453 and need to rely 100% on logging in with a browser, and unlike the TS-453, the TVS-951X does not have an internal power supply but instead comes with a very large external brick transformer.The 9-bay description is highly misleading as it is really a 5-drive enclosure with 4 bays for SSD drives for tiered storage. This only works if you have the same data being accessed repeatedly and these are only going to store 15% of the data so 95% of the data likely to be accessed will be on the 5 hard drives in their RAID array.From a practical standpoint this array provides up to 21TB of storage with 5 6TB hard drives. Need more capacity then that and it is wiser to go to a true 10-drive array with 10 hard drive bays or 10 SSD drive bays. Going to larger capacity drives means either much longer rebuild times and a larger window of data vulnerability or going to RAID6 and giving up another 25% of the array capacity.The initial array build with five 6TB 7200 RPM hard drives was 14 hours with the TVS-951X NAS enclosure. I would expect that this would be close to the amount of time required to rebuild the array after a hard drive is replaced.

Good Small Business Backup System with Room to Grow

Purchased QNAP TVS-663 based on recommendation of IT pro. The recommendation was based on reliability of the device and the QNAP support. I am not an IT pro and I require quite a bit of support. Device is currently configured with 2 X 10TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives in RAID 1. Currently have about 6TB of data to backup and expect to add additional two 10TB or larger drives within about a year. The device will be used as the primary backup for our small photography business. We may eventually use the media server capability. The Pro's about QNAP. Start up was fairly easy and the QNAP support personnel are excellent. Very patient both before and after the sale. Walked me through the selection and setup and readily addressed any questions or issues via chat or on the ... MorePurchased QNAP TVS-663 based on recommendation of IT pro. The recommendation was based on reliability of the device and the QNAP support. I am not an IT pro and I require quite a bit of support. Device is currently configured with 2 X 10TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives in RAID 1. Currently have about 6TB of data to backup and expect to add additional two 10TB or larger drives within about a year. The device will be used as the primary backup for our small photography business. We may eventually use the media server capability. The Pro's about QNAP. Start up was fairly easy and the QNAP support personnel are excellent. Very patient both before and after the sale. Walked me through the selection and setup and readily addressed any questions or issues via chat or on the phone. The Con's. In my opinion the documentation is not detailed enough for someone like me who has a small business and is not an IT expert. The QNAP support personnel are not available 24 x 7.

Good on paper but would not buy again

A number of problems are evident with this particular NAS which I did not appreciate at the time of purchase. This was the least expensive QNAP NAS with a built-in 10GB Ethernet port. But having only 2 ports, a 10GBe and a 1GBe is a real limitation on a network even with a switch (unless you spend $600 for a 10GBe switch).It also, despite its selling price, lacks a LCD display and so one has to rely 100% on its being 100% operable and being able to login with a browser to know its state. With my TS-453 NAS I can tell when it the boot has hung and power it off and back on to force a re-start. No way to know if there is a problem when the TVS-951X when it is attempting to boot.

I just wanted to post a quick review to assist others and hopefully reduce any future aggravation...

I just wanted to post a quick review to assist others and hopefully reduce any future aggravation. For those that are looking for a compatible 10Gbe SFP+ PCIe card (other than QNAP), I opted for the following and it works perfectly. ""'SoNNeT Solo 10GBASE-T Ethernet 1-Port PCIe Card SFP incl. [Thunderbolt Compatible]'. I have two PCI cards installed, the above and a QNAP Q2 NVMe 2280 SSD expansion card. The SoNNnetT 10Gbe network card was the installed on top and the QNAP below for reasons that will make sense if you have a similar configuration. I removed 1 star because you'll quickly notice that the wiring harness may require re-routing through the box (along the side). The wires are pinched by the Q2 card. It might be fine to leave it alone but I wasn't going to ... MoreI just wanted to post a quick review to assist others and hopefully reduce any future aggravation. For those that are looking for a compatible 10Gbe SFP+ PCIe card (other than QNAP), I opted for the following and it works perfectly. ""'SoNNeT Solo 10GBASE-T Ethernet 1-Port PCIe Card SFP incl. [Thunderbolt Compatible]'. I have two PCI cards installed, the above and a QNAP Q2 NVMe 2280 SSD expansion card. The SoNNnetT 10Gbe network card was the installed on top and the QNAP below for reasons that will make sense if you have a similar configuration. I removed 1 star because you'll quickly notice that the wiring harness may require re-routing through the box (along the side). The wires are pinched by the Q2 card. It might be fine to leave it alone but I wasn't going to take the risk. Be patient and watch out for the sharp sheet metal. This looks to be a great unit so far (too soon to tell).

Impressive NAS

I can't say enough about this NAS. I was looking for a backup NAS and ended up getting this as it can do so many things. (Web server, VPN, syslog server, cloud, etc...) I am also using it as a Plex media server. This little item can stream HD content to three (maybe four) different devices without issue. It also has an HDMI port if you want to use it with directly connected Home Theater software. However, it does not have a remote. I may see what it takes to have one added. Installation is a breeze. I was shocked at how fast I was up and running. I'm also amazed at how quiet (and cool) this NAS is. I expected the worse. I can't speak about support as I haven't had any need to contact them. I'm very impressed with how well thought out the QTS operating system is. I ... MoreI can't say enough about this NAS. I was looking for a backup NAS and ended up getting this as it can do so many things. (Web server, VPN, syslog server, cloud, etc...) I am also using it as a Plex media server. This little item can stream HD content to three (maybe four) different devices without issue. It also has an HDMI port if you want to use it with directly connected Home Theater software. However, it does not have a remote. I may see what it takes to have one added. Installation is a breeze. I was shocked at how fast I was up and running. I'm also amazed at how quiet (and cool) this NAS is. I expected the worse. I can't speak about support as I haven't had any need to contact them. I'm very impressed with how well thought out the QTS operating system is. I understand why they are highly regarded and am glad I bought one.

Tried QuTS. It failed on some basic testing and trials. Switched to QTS. That failed after some e...

Tried QuTS. It failed on some basic testing and trials. Switched to QTS. That failed after some experimenting. Switched back to Quts and took more care. QuTS dropped my NVMEs which were the System drives in Raid 1. I am still considering QNAP because I wanted something that was 'pre-made' rather than setting up a TrueNAS system. But it would have to be a different engineered design. Do check the qnap forums. Search dropped drive or whatever. Seems that the sata controllers fails do to whatever. But a computer must operate without error. Don't forget that this is your data and to have a 'specialized' computer fail, that is not acceptable. I do not accept failure from any computer and I expect better engineering than this.